She came in like a whirlwind, kicking up dust wherever she went, and now, Michelle Rhee, all-powerful chancellor of D.C. public schools, is leaving after three years, securing her place in the history of D.C. public education as, well, mostly a whirlwind.

Prominent education reformer Deborah Meier writes: "We're now entering the age when "tough love" is the plot when it comes to teachers and parents. Only it's they who we need to be tough on. It's all those smart young people who went into teaching in the late 1960s and '70s (some to avoid the draft) with their permissive spoiled-brat histories who become the villains of the new wave of school-based romances. Neither tough-love imposed by elite Ivy League grads nor the generous-love imposed by elite draft-dodgers—forgive the unfair labels—will do."